Jeff Flake among lawmakers visiting with jailed Americans in Cuba

HAVANA (AP) — U.S. lawmakers confirmed on Wednesday that they visited an American man whose detention and long sentence in Cuba has hampered efforts to improve ties between the countries, but they gave no details on his condition or what was said.

The seven-member delegation led by Sen. Patrick Leahy, and which includes Sens. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona; Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan; and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, along with Democratic Reps. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Van Hollen, also met with Cuban President Raul Castro and other senior officials.

Leahy said that the two sides “discussed the continuing obstacles and the need to improve relations,” adding that a rapprochement “is in the interest of both countries.” The meeting was also covered in the Cuban press, with a front-page photo of a smiling Leahy and Castro seated at a small table in front of a thick clutch of palm fronds.

The Vermont Democrat spent his last morning in Cuba strolling around Central Havana, admiring the Capitol building, which is almost an exact replica of the one he works at in Washington. The Cuban version, people in Havana like to point out, is several inches higher.

The lawmaker also saw a historic theater and snapped a photo of his wife standing next to a 1939 Ford Model A convertible with a rumble seat in the back.

“I’ve been to Cuba several times and I think that we’re at a time when I would hope that both our countries would adapt to the 21st century as far as relations,” Leahy told The Associated Press.

“I had very good talks with President Castro, (and) with others also, and I’ll talk to President Obama when I get back and I will fill him in on those talks. I’ll also give him my recommendations.”

Asked about Gross’ condition, the senator did not give specifics. Gross has lost more than 100 pounds in prison since his arrest and is suffering from several chronic ailments.

“I think Mr. Gross would be a lot better off if he could be home,” Leahy said. “I hope that a day will come soon that he can be home.”

Leahy and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Gross’ home state of Maryland, met with the 63-year-old on Tuesday, likely at a military hospital where Alan Gross has been held since his arrest in 2009.

Gross is serving a 15-year-sentence for bringing communications equipment to the island illegally while on a USAID-funded democracy-building program.

Leahy said upon his arrival in Cuba on Monday that nothing would make him happier than to leave with Gross on the plane, but he also added such a result was highly unlikely. Cuba has been visited by a parade of American officials over the years, including former President Jimmy Carter and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, and all have left empty-handed.

Leahy himself led a similar congressional delegation in 2012, meeting with Gross and Castro as well on that trip.

Cuba has voiced an interest in freeing Gross, but only if Washington agrees to consider releasing five Cuban agents sentenced to long jail terms in the United States.

One of those men completed his sentence last year, but must serve three additional years of probation before he will be allowed to return to Cuba.

One comment

Senator Flake, With all due respect visit the jails and prisons in your own backyard — a shameful boondoggle of Arizona’s mass incarceration of its own people. Many held non-bondable and for decades and defacto-life sentences under Arizona’s draconian mandatory sentencing scheme. A scheme for $$$’s for the prison profiteers. This is very Third World.

Senator Flake, Many are men, women and children, who are lost in the justice system and thrown behind the walls to be silenced — many are innocent and wrongfully convicted, and wrongfully imprisoned in your own backyard here — in Arizona.

Who’s asking the tough questions of Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery? And the state Attorney General? And the Governor who “controls” the prisons and peoples’ destiny? Disgraced and disbarred Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas and his disbarred “chief charging” prosecutor, ex-DCA Lisa Aubuchon as Thomas bragged about his over 200,000 felony CASES in one term in office. This demands an investigation to get the innocent out of prison. Are you up to the challenge?